Heather James Interview

"...writers
have the ability, the power even, to either imprint a reader or stain
them. I didn’t want to stain my readers. I still don’t." --Heather James

Heather James is the author of the Lure of the Serpent Series, suspense
novels that pack quick wit into the high heels of attorney turned
vigilante, Evelyn Barrett.

In addition, Heather is a practicing lawyer in California and a columnist
with The Bakersfield Californian. Her columns focus on the humorous aspects
of marriage and parenthood. Heather is married and works at home, raising
two young sons.

Were books a big part
of your life growing up? If so, what book had the most impact on you
as a child?

Sadly, no. For the
most part, I believe reading is a modeled behavior and I hardly remember
seeing a book in either
of my parents’ hands. I always had a fondness of books, but never
followed through with picking them up and reading them because it wasn’t
something generally done in my house. Of the juvenile books I picked up,
they bored me to tears and I’d never finish what I started. However,
my grandfather knew I enjoyed writing—despite my lack of interest
in reading—so one day, he gave me Gone with the Wind, telling me
that somewhere inside of me was a sleeping book lover who just needed to
find the right books. I read Gone with the Wind straight through in one
weekend when I was in high school.

Next, I read Of Mice and Men and The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I think those three books, back-to-back, solidified
to me that as long as I had a good story in my hand, I was a voracious
reader. My favorite book of all time, Wuthering Heights, got in my hands
once I was in college. I was fascinated that I could both hate and love
main characters. I think the main character in my series, Evelyn Barrett,
has that slap ‘em or hug ‘em thing going on, like Bronte did
for Heathcliff and Catherine—even with what Mitchell did with Scarlett
O’Hara. In that regard, I’d have to tip my hat to those ladies
for influencing how I create characters.Law came before writing for you, right? What was it that drew you to
practicing law and what did the journey to become a lawyer look like
for you?

The
short of it is that I’m a lawyer because my dad’s a lawyer,
too. Law did come before writing but only as a means to an end. As a
child, I’d go around saying I wanted to be a lawyer or author when
I grew up. The author was something I wanted for me, and the lawyer career
was something to follow in my father’s footsteps. As I neared college,
I started dropping the lawyer part of the equation and my father intervened
by asking if I knew why society used the term “starving artist” to
talk about poets and what not. He told me that even though my heart wanted
to pursue writing, I should still look to a career that could faithfully
pay the mortgage. In retrospect, this was phenomenal advice. In fact,
when teens or college kids ask me for writing advice these days, my father’s
advice to me is one of my staples: Get a good day job and then follow
your dreams. It isn’t easy to pull double duty, but it makes it
easier to “suffer” in a decent home, a dependable car, and
with food on the table.

Granted it was a lot of work for a fallback career—four years of undergrad
and three more for law school, (not to mention the student loans that hurt
to talk about.) As a lawyer, I primarily do business and contract law, but
still dream of the day I can hang up my briefcase and only call myself author.
Law definitely has its financial perks, but after all these years, I’d
still rather be following my heart.

When and where did
newspaper writing and novel crafting come into the picture?

The novel
writing has
always been my end game. Everything else
I’ve done—including being a lawyer and a newspaper columnist—has
been to further my end game. The newspaper writing was my mother’s
idea to help start creating a fan base. The columnist position originated
from emails I’d send to my family and friends, detailing all the
wacky and wild stuff my firstborn was doing when he was a toddler. Because
I wasn’t writing anything else, my emails became more elaborate and
descriptive. I also seemed to have a knack at making it funny and entertaining
rather than simply saying: “The baby shoved spaghetti up his nose.
Hardy har har.”

The more I did this, the more response I got back from family members who
told me my emails reminded them of Erma Bombeck’s column from long ago. That’s
when my mother started encouraging me to be a columnist. I immediately shot
her down, saying it was novel writing or nothing. She then reminded me that
I’d garner more attention from agents and publishers if I were already
in print.

I started submitting to our local paper and magazines, receiving no compensation
for my print time. After about a year of that, they decided to pay me and offered
me my own spot in the paper. Not to mention that both my current agent and
publisher said it was a huge plus when deciding to sign with me that I had
a column in print. Give it to Mom for being right!

I used to say I’d drop the column as soon as I got a novel published,
but there’s no way now. I love it. It’s short, rewarding, and a
great platform to show—humorously—how my children and husband are
slowly killing me. As I’ve often remarked to my husband, if I didn’t
have the column to turn their antics into a comedy routine, then I’d
be drowning in my own tears. (They never let me go to the bathroom by myself!
Even the husband intrudes! It’s ridiculous. I don’t know why I
even feed them.)

Is Unholy
Hunger the first novel you wrote or do you have others sitting in a drawer?
We’d love to hear a little bit about your journey to
publication.

Does having others sitting in a landfill count? Unholy Hunger is the second full-length novel I’ve done, and that’s after
a try at a non-fiction attempt at a business book for stay-at-home moms,
modeling how I managed to run my own law firm from my den while my kids
napped. The non-fiction got an agent’s attention, but then nothing.
I honestly didn’t have my heart in it and I just let it die, wanting
only to pursue fiction. The first fiction manuscript I did was almost there,
but not quite enough. I got some interest in that one, too. In fact, my
current agent, Greg Johnson, and I met over that manuscript. He said he
liked my writing but didn’t like the story. I had to noodle that
one because if I was being honest with myself, it wasn’t what I considered
my best shot, either. It was more of a mamby-pamby love story, and I think
I’ve learned from trial and error that that’s not my genre.
There are plenty of talented people out there who can rock love stories,
but I’m not one of those people.

Going for broke, I decided to write the type of story I love to read, even
though I wasn’t sure the CBA would have any of it. Enter Unholy Hunger.

Now, this novel
deals with some tough subjects. I see some similarities in Evelyn that
coincide
with
your life (she’s a lawyer, mom, etc.),
but I hope you never had to deal with the horror she did. Share with us
what drew you to write about the subject of losing a child to a pedophile.

No, I’ve never had to deal with the loss of a child. The reason I
wrote this story, however, was because it sprang from a nightmare I had
when my eldest was about three years old. I dreamt a pedophile got him,
and I’d never been so scared in my life. It was a horrible dream.
When I woke up the next day, I even tossed the clothes my son had worn
in my dream because I was so shaken. The nightmare seemed to haunt me for
years, even becoming a recurring one. If I saw a parent turn their eyes
away from their kids for too long at a park, I’d want to run up to
them and tell them my dream. I had this overwhelming desire to shout it
out to every parent: DON’T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF YOUR CHILDREN!

I don’t really find it a coincidence, but during the same week Greg
Johnson told me to scrap the mamby-pamby love story and start over with
a new story,
I had the dream again. Utterly sick of having the nightmare, I got up and started
writing it, hoping that it would make it go away like when you write your troubles
in the sand and the tide pulls it away forever.

Luckily, it worked. I haven’t had the dream since. As the story developed
into what it is, I realized that God was giving me my opportunity to shout
out to every parent: DON’T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF YOUR CHILDREN! Yes, this
is fiction but make no mistake about it, I have a message to tell you.

Even though
there’s a definite grittiness to your work, it is never
gratuitous. Kudos to you for that. What challenges, if any, did you face
in the writing?

If I’m being totally open here, the first draft was
a bit gratuitous. Then, in between the first and second draft, I read a
book that was unnecessarily gratuitous itself. I wanted to scrub my brain
to wash out the images from that book, and that’s when it occurred
to me that writers have the ability, the power even, to either imprint
a reader or stain them. I didn’t want to stain my readers. I still
don’t.

The hardest challenge for me in writing this book was the obvious heart
strings involved. I had to become that woman who lost her child and I really
didn’t
want to go there. Still, I knew it had to be done. Because there’s a
message I believe every parent needs to read, I pushed myself through the emotions
of it.

I love the
humor of your blog posts and columns! Evelyn gets to have many funny
quips in
this novel.
Was that intentional on your part, to balance
the horror with humor?

Thank you! That’s why I won’t ever give
up my column. I love to make people laugh at the crazy stuff my family
does. There is seriously no end to them giving me great material.

With the book, though, humor wasn’t intentional at first. I was simply
writing along the way I knew how. When it was done, I realized that something
good had accidentally happened, and that it did, in fact, balance the hard-hitting
emotions. Just when you think you can’t handle the tears, Evelyn
is somehow making you laugh out loud.

I really like the end-result, with its mix of grit, drama, suspense, and humor.
I intend to continue to do that for the same reasons I like mixing my TV viewing
between comedies and crime dramas. Since we all experience a myriad of emotions
on any given day, I enjoy setting up my books in the same fashion.

There are some
Christian fiction readers who might squirm at the idea of reading about
a child’s murder, especially at the hands of a pedophile.
What would you say to them to encourage them to give your book a try?

First,
I want to alleviate any fears anyone has about this being a scary book.
It’s not. I have yet to have a reader call me a liar when I’ve
told them it wasn’t scary. The bad things that happen to the children
in this book happen out of the reader’s view. Readers abstractly
know what happens, but they don’t have to read the nasty details
of it. Consider it like watching the news, and I believe the news gives
out more details than you’ll find in this book. As you’ve already
pointed out, this book may be gritty, but it’s not gratuitous. Ultimately,
I have to answer to God for what I put out there and I feel I haven’t
crossed any lines in that regard.

I’d also encourage everyone to give the book a try because of the message
involved. Not only am I trying to convey to parents to keep a close eye on
their kids, I’m trying to relay to the world that you have an enemy out
there, above the flesh and bone ones we may cross paths with on a daily basis.

What are two things
people might be surprised to know about you?

I’m
actually looking forward to the day when I’m so old, I don’t
care if I wear my pajamas all day. (Just don’t take a picture of
me at Walmart and post it.) Seriously, pajamas rule. I love them. My husband
is not happy about my transfiguration into the world of constant PJs, and
when he told me that, I started buying the ugliest, frumpiest pajamas ever.
It’s like a game now. I’m winning by the way.

Second thing most people tend to be surprised about me is how I talk to
my kids and what they know. This is thanks to the lawyer in me. For example,
my
four year old said to another four year old at church the other day, “Don’t
run around the bricks on the fountain because if you fall and get hurt, there
might be a lawsuit and then the insurance premiums would rise and those are
our tithe dollars.”

Um, yeah. Guilty.

You sound like
one busy woman raising your kids, writing and lawyering. How do you
keep
sane?

Denial?
Ha ha! I have a wonderfully supportive husband.
What I can’t get around to in a day’s time—errand and
child-rearing wise—he gladly does for me. My house is definitely
far messier than I’m all right with, so that part really does fall
in the denial category. But my kids have promised me they won’t complain
to their future therapists about the constant state of chaos on my kitchen
counter.

All kidding aside, I think the largest part of my sanity and ability to
keep going starts each day when my knees hit the floor beside my bed in
daily prayer.
I beg God for strength, patience, and caffeine. He’s pretty darn faithful
to give those things in heaping measure. Well, except for the caffeine. My
husband brews the coffee each morning.

How would you
describe your writing to someone who hasn’t read it
yet?

I’ve had someone call it, “terse but pretty.” I
liked that. I liked your reference even better: gritty but not gratuitous.
One of the original editors on this book said I was the Christian version
of Janet Evanovich. I picked up one of Evanovich’s books to understand
the reference and sure enough, it was accurate. The only difference is
I won’t use bad words and you won’t be finding any loose women
in my books.

You’re
in line at Starbucks, what are you ordering?

I usually save
Starbucks for holiday time, and then my favorite drink is Pumpkin Spice
Latte. The rest of the year, I’m too much of a cheapskate and calorie
counter to frequent Starbucks. The kids do like their little donuts there,
though, so if I’m feeling particularly weak on disciplining them,
I’ll turn to bribing them with some Starbucks sweeties.

Could you share with
us a little bit about the other books in this series? Have they been
written yet
or are they still in the works?

I’ve recently
finished the second book and will begin the third right away. I can’t
give away too much about the next two because I don’t want to give
out spoilers for the first. What I can say is the main reason Kregel signed
me for a three-book deal is because they fell in love with my main character,
Evelyn Barrett. You can expect each book to follow a new chapter in Evelyn’s
life, as well as some high profile crimes occurring for the underlying
suspense nature. In Unholy Hunger, readers find Evelyn a bit off kilter
because she is grieving the loss of her daughter. In the next two books,
she’s more humorous when she’s out from underneath her dark
cloud, but on occasion can be more ornery because of everything she’s
been through.

Anything else
you’d like to say?

Yes. I’m afraid I have a
soapbox here I need to get up on. SUPPORT CHRISTIAN ARTISTS! While I could’ve
left out some of the God references and marketed this book to the ABA,
I chose not to. Even though I would’ve likely made more money doing
it, I chose not to. My choice is based on the premise that I want to honor
God and uplift my brothers and sisters in Christ. However, on this journey
I’ve become keenly aware of very talented musicians and writers in
the Christian market who’ve had to hang up their hats because there
simply isn’t enough profit to sustain them being artists in Christian
industry as a career choice. Take any number of immensely talented Christian
recording artists, for example. You like them, you hear them on the radio,
but then bam, they’re retiring. They’re not telling you this,
but the majority of them retire because they need to pay mortgages and
tuitions, etc., and making uplifting, God-centered songs aren’t doing
it when so many Christians are still buying Beyoncé and Katy Perry
instead of Barlow Girl and Beckah Shae.

The same is true for Christian fiction authors. I’ve heard complaints
that many of the Christian authors aren’t of the same caliber as the
ones in the ABA. To that I say, look harder, but I also say, are you sure you’re
buying enough books to draw in big talent? The more the CBA pulls in sales,
the more you’re going to draw better writers to produce for you. That’s
truth. Plain truth.

So again, SUPPORT CHRISTIAN ARTISTS! It’s sort of like that Field
of Dreams line: If you build it, they will come.

C.J.
Darlington is the award-winning authof of Thicker than Blood,
Bound by Guilt, and Ties that Bind. She
is a regular contributor to Family Fiction
Digital Magazine and NovelCrossing.com.
A homeschool graduate, she makes her home in Pennsylvania
with her family and their menagerie of dogs, a cat, and a paint horse named
Sky. Visit
her online
at her
author website. You can also look
her
up
at Twitter and Facebook.